Acceptance
by Ani-maniac494
Summary: As the mummies get settled into their new home, there are things they need to talk about - like a certain Cat-Guardian and the secret she kept from them for so long. Set directly after the first episode, "Ra, Ra, Ra, Ra." One-shot.


Spoilers: Major spoilers for the first episode, "Ra, Ra, Ra, Ra," and some references to "Sleep Walk Like an Egyptian," "My Dad the Hero," and "Eye of the Beholder."

Disclaimer: I don't own the mummies, but can I keep them anyway? Please? *looks hopeful*

A/N: It's been a while since I've written for Mummies Alive, but when a plot bunny wrapped in bandages hopped up to me, I just couldn't resist. This fic is a sequel of sorts to my earlier Nefer-Tina-centered fan fics, "Alone," and "Requiem," but you don't have to read those stories to understand this one (though if you'd like to read them, I certainly won't object). :)

As always, I thank my Lord Jesus Christ for his incredible mercy and grace and his many blessings. I would be utterly lost without him.

I hope you enjoy this, and please let me know what you think!

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 **Acceptance**

Nefer-Tina's footsteps echoed in the modern copy of the sphinx, the sound rebounding off the shadowed corners.

The effect reminded her the Pharaoh's palace, the great temples…or a tomb. She scoffed softly. That last one was certainly fitting. They should feel right at home.

They'd already found a raised platform with space enough for their sarcophagi, and they had quickly emptied the large, horseless chariot - a "truck," Prince Rapses had called it - of their other belongings. The museum had packed everything away in wooden crates that were labeled with the bizarre hieroglyphics common to this new world. Rath had cast a spell to translate the writing, and the scrawling symbols had become legible once again. Mostly, anyway.

(Armon was kneeling down beside the largest of the crates, staring at the cartouche now decorating the face of the wood.

"Strong …warrior…believed to…smite…ducks?" he read slowly, sounding puzzled. "That can't be right. Rath, I thought you said we'd be able to understand these now!"

"Well, I didn't promise perfection!" Rath retorted. "Translation spells are notoriously fickle.")

Rath had transported the truck itself inside the sphinx with his magic - that spell, at least, had worked like it was meant to - and Rath had quickly claimed that space as part of his new workshop, saying that he planned to take the truck apart and study the mechanisms inside. He was confident that before long, he'd be able to create his own, far superior version. Nefer-Tina couldn't deny that she was excited to see what he came up with, and she had already offered - alright, demanded - to be the first to drive it.

Once they had finished unpacking, they'd set about exploring their new home, wandering from room to room, choosing the ones they might want for their own use. Nefer-Tina picked out the area she thought would work best for a garage, and discovered a small chamber that seemed like a good place to store the few personal belongings she had found in the crates. There wasn't much: a model of a chariot that her father had given her when she was a girl, the first whip she had ever used - one that had been old and frayed even before it had been buried with her for 3500 years - and a simple gold cuff that had once belonged to her mother. Still, few as her treasures were, Nefer-Tina liked the idea of having a place to view them away from prying eyes. She would have to ask the others if she could claim the room as hers.

Satisfied by what she'd found, Nefer-Tina started heading back to an alcove that wasn't far from their sarcophagi.

The others were already there - she could hear them talking - and she walked up the short staircase, intending to join them. On a whim, as she climbed, she reached out her hand to run it along the nearest wall, her fingers brushing over the rough surface. It felt strange - not bad, but strange - a poor imitation of the carved stone blocks and handmade bricks she remembered. The air in the sphinx had an odd scent, too. It was tangy and bitter, filled with foreign chemicals that were probably a result of whatever "modern" techniques had been used to create this place. It made her miss the earthier scents of limestone, desert sand, and incense.

"Yes…yes, I believe this will do nicely," Rath was saying as she approached. "The construction is rather flawed by our standards, but that can be dealt with over time."

She saw Ja-Kal nod thoughtfully. "I agree. It is the best we are likely to find."

"I like it," Armon offered. "There's plenty of room. And I know just where we can put the kitchen!"

Nefer-Tina had to smile at that. Not even death could interfere with Armon's appetite.

"What do you think, Nefer?" the big warrior asked. "I mean…Nefer-Tina."

He stumbled a little over her name. Her real name.

And that was all it took.

The others turned to look at her too, and the relaxed atmosphere evaporated like a drop of water in the desert sun.

Rath opened his mouth with his usual haughty air, and then abruptly closed it again, as though, for once, he could find nothing to say. Armon let his gaze drop to the floor, and reached up with his remaining arm to scratch the back of his neck. And Ja-Kal…Ja-Kal looked apologetic, as if he'd suddenly remembered every instance in which they might have inadvertently offended her. Men, after all, didn't always censor themselves around other men the way that they censored themselves around women.

Though, truthfully, Ja-Kal didn't have anything to worry about on that front. He was honorable to a fault. Armon and Rath were much the same, though Nefer-Tina remembered certain feasts where they'd been deep in their cups, and well…they weren't nearly as bad as some of those she'd met while racing chariots, but they'd still had their moments.

Nefer-Tina had never seen any of the men in front of her looking so uncomfortable, so hesitant, and any other time, their expressions would have been funny. But it was hard to find the humor in it now.

She'd been waiting for this moment since Prince Rapses had revealed the truth a few hours earlier. She could admit that she'd taken advantage of that…that she'd jumped at the chance to confirm her identity when the others wouldn't be able to hound her with questions and demands. Plus, she'd wanted to do it on her own terms, in her own way, before one of them noticed that her bandages hugged certain curves _-_ curves that her bulky plate armor had hidden so well when she'd been alive.

They'd been surprisingly oblivious to the difference, actually…and Nefer-Tina was both amused and maybe just the tiniest bit insulted. She didn't particularly _want_ to be eyed up by the men who were like her brothers, but she still had her pride, and now that she had no armor to hide behind, surely it wasn't _that_ hard to see that she was a woman, was it?

She tried not to take it personally. They were so used to seeing _Nefer_ that they probably hadn't thought about looking any closer, and really, that was a good thing. Scarab had attacked right after they'd awakened, and the last thing she wanted was to be a distraction.

Besides, nothing had changed…not for her. She was the same person she had always been.

A charioteer.

A Guardian.

A woman.

The others seemed to have accepted that last fact readily enough…at least at first. There'd been no protesting or posturing after they'd learned the truth, and during their second battle with Scarab, they'd treated her no differently than they had before. They still accepted her as a warrior, and hadn't once questioned her skills. She couldn't deny the relief she'd felt at that. She'd worked long and hard to earn her place alongside these men - sacrificed her life, even - and she didn't want to have to struggle for it all over again simply because they now knew who she was.

But she'd known it wouldn't be that simple for long. The issue had been easy enough to ignore when they'd been worried about protecting their Prince and trying to find their footing in this strange, new world. Now, though? Now when they finally had a moment to themselves? All bets were off.

The uncomfortable silence stretched on, and no one really seemed to know how to break it.

Irritated, Nefer-Tina finally crossed her arms over her chest and glared. "Is this gonna be a problem?" she demanded at last. "Because if it is, just tell me now."

The men around her winced, exchanging uneasy looks.

She wasn't really surprised when it was Ja-Kal who spoke first.

"Nefer-Tina," he began, and she did not miss the slight emphasis he put on her name, "I think I speak for all of us when I say that we have nothing against you."

"Certainly not," Rath interjected.

"No way," Armon agreed.

"But," Ja-Kal continued, "we knew _Nefer_ for years. It will take time for us to adjust to…thinking of you differently."

Nefer-Tina's eyes narrowed. "That's just it! I'm the same person you've always known. I don't want you to think of me differently!"

"Is that why you didn't tell us?" Armon wondered.

Nefer-Tina opened her mouth to disagree, but the words died on her tongue. The truth was…that _had_ been part of it. Sure, she had feared discovery because of what it might mean - banishment, execution, or worse - but the Pharaoh's punishment wasn't the only thing she had dreaded.

As reluctant as she was to admit it - especially when it came to Rath (he didn't need anything else to inflate his ego) - she genuinely respected her fellow Guardians. They respected her in return - or at least, they had respected Nefer. Would they be able to respect Nefer-Tina? _Nefer-Tina_ had lied to them, day in and day out, season after season. What if they hated her for it? What if they looked at her with disdain, not because they couldn't accept her as a woman, but because she had deceived them for so long?

Nefer-Tina sighed, a harsh gust of air that blew a few loose strands of hair away from her face. "How exactly was I supposed to tell you?" she demanded sharply. "How would I even bring it up? 'Prince Rapses has called for his chariot, and we won't return until evening. By the way, I'm actually a woman in disguise. See you later!'"

Armon chuckled at that. "Sure would have livened things up, at least."

Nefer-Tina rolled her eyes, but she couldn't keep a faint smile off her face - that really would have been something. Ja-Kal and Rath looked just as amused by the idea, though it didn't take long for a more somber mood to return.

Nefer-Tina uncrossed her arms and let her hands rest on her hips, curious now. "What would you have done if I _had_ told you?" she asked.

It would have put them in a difficult position, she knew. Beyond whatever loyalty they might have felt towards her, they would have been honor-bound to tell the Pharaoh. Yet, they were equally bound by their oaths to the Prince. Part of those oaths involved evaluating one another - they were sworn to ensure that Prince Rapses had the best and most skilled protectors in all of Egypt. If, in spite of her gender, they felt that she was the most skilled individual available, then did their honor actually demand keeping her secret? After all, regardless of the punishment the Pharaoh chose, exposing her identity as a woman meant that she would surely be stripped of her title…and if that happened, then the Prince might be left vulnerable with a less competent charioteer.

For the second time that night, a strained silence descended over the sphinx, and she could see the men in front of her struggling with those same questions.

"To be honest," Ja-Kal began at last, "I don't know what I would have done."

"Me neither," Armon said.

"I-" Rath started, then seemed to deflate a little. "I admit, I'm not sure myself."

Their uncertainty hurt - she would have preferred it if they had jumped right to her defense - but Nefer-Tina nodded in acceptance. She knew that it wasn't fair for her to expect anything else. She hadn't given them much time to think, and even if she had, some questions just didn't have any easy answers.

Ja-Kal sighed. "Perhaps," he admitted, "it was best that we didn't know. In any case, we will gain nothing by wondering what might have been. We can only deal with what has been and what is." He paused, his brow furrowing as he turned to look at her once more. "Nefer-Tina, you said that only Prince Rapses knew. When did our Pharaoh learn the truth?"

"Right before I died."

It sounded so strange to say it out loud. She knew that she was dead - she remembered dying in vivid detail - and yet, she still felt very much alive. Her heart no longer beat, but her lungs still drew in air to allow her to speak, her limbs still moved with ease, and her senses worked as they always had. Once or twice already, she'd stared down at her bandage-wrapped hands, surprised to see the gray hue of her skin instead of the healthy tan she remembered.

She wondered if the others felt the same.

"Before you died?" Rath repeated. "But…I don't understand. I saw you fall during the battle. You weren't killed?"

Almost unconsciously, Nefer-Tina pressed a hand against her side. The magic that had reanimated them had knit the flesh together once more, as though she'd never been wounded in the first place. But she still remembered the sudden, sharp pain she'd felt when a spear thrust had found a weak point in her armor.

She let her hand drop back down and shook her head. "No, I survived. For a while, at least. I don't know how long the healers cared for me…most of it's a blur. But, close to the end, the Pharaoh arrived, and the healers told him the truth about me. He granted me his favor and told me I would be buried as a Guardian."

They'd probably guessed that much…that she had been given the Pharaoh's blessing. The sheer fact that she had been summed to protect Rapses with them spoke of Amenhotep's acceptance. But she'd wanted to say it just the same. Regardless of what anyone else thought, her Pharaoh had found her worthy.

"We are glad that you are here with us," Ja-Kal told her, and the warmth in his voice made it impossible to think that they were just empty words.

Armon nodded in agreement, offering her a big smile, and even Rath's expression softened for a moment, though he remembered himself quickly, lifting his chin and giving her a curt nod of his own.

Nefer-Tina felt something uncoil a little around her chest - hopefully it wasn't her bandages, she thought wryly.

"Thank you," she told them, her own voice softer than she had meant for it to be.

Armon smiled again, then frowned suddenly, reaching up to scratch his chin thoughtfully. "Hey, how did you start driving chariots, anyway? None of the women I knew back in Egypt were interested in that sort of thing."

"Armon, the women _you_ knew probably spent most of their time in the kitchen," Rath pointed out dryly.

"Mm," Armon said, patting his stomach in a satisfied way. "True."

Nefer-Tina snorted softly and shook her head. "It's a long story."

"We're willing to listen, if you're willing to tell us," Ja-Kal offered.

Nefer-Tina considered that for a moment, then sighed and moved to sit down on a nearby stone bench. Armon sat beside her, while Ja-Kal and Rath remained standing.

She was quiet at first, trying to figure out where to start. It was a story she'd never told anyone before - a story she'd never been _able_ to tell. Finally, she leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, her hands curled loosely in her lap.

"I was an only child," she began. "My parents had wanted a large family, but my birth was difficult, and afterwards…afterwards my mother was sick more often then not. She never really recovered, and she only grew worse as the seasons passed."

She glanced up to find the others watching her with looks of understanding mingled with sorrow. They all knew how difficult and dangerous childbirth could be. In Egypt, many women had lost their lives that way.

"Soon," she continued, "my father was spending most of his money on physicians, hoping that one of them could cure her. But nothing they did seemed to help, and eventually, so much was being spent on healers and medicines that my father couldn't afford to hire a servant to care for me during the day. My mother was too weak to do it herself, so my father started taking me with him to his work."

"And what did he do for work?" Armon asked.

Nefer-Tina smiled. "He built chariots. He used to race them when he was younger. But when he married my mother, he started making them instead. I think he worried that I would be bored there, in his shop, and he always told me that if I was especially good, he would take me for a ride in one of the chariots in the afternoon." Her smile turned wry. "I was _always_ good."

Armon snorted. "I'll bet."

"If my father was busy with customers, he would ask Sebni, his wheelwright, to keep me entertained." She laughed softly in remembrance, shaking her head. "Sebni was a retired solider who had six sons. He didn't know the first thing about entertaining a little girl. So…he wound up taking me out behind the shop and teaching me Egyp-tsu. I liked it so much that I started pestering him for lessons even when the shop wasn't busy."

That earned her some soft chuckles from the others.

"But it was always the chariot rides that I looked forward to the most. When I got a little older, my father started letting me take the reins myself. We were far enough into the desert that no one would see us, and I think he figured, 'What harm could there be'?"

She treasured the memory of those days. The days when her father had been content to stand there in the chariot with her, watching her drive the horses while he called out advice…the days when she'd been too young to realize that things wouldn't always be that way.

Nefer-Tina's smile faded. "I practically grew up there, in that shop, and I loved it, the chariots, the horses, learning to fight, all of it. I couldn't imagine any other kind of life. But, my father…he had a different plan for me. My mother had always been beautiful. Lady-like. She wasn't nobility by birth, but you wouldn't have known it looking at her. My father called her his princess. And as I got older…I think he expected that one day I would wake up and be just like her. But I wasn't. I was like him."

Her hands curled into fists in her lap, her heart aching as she remembered his words after the Nile Valley Championship, when he'd come up to her after the race, not knowing who she was.

 _I wish I had a son just like you._

He didn't have a son. He had a daughter.

"It got worse after my mother died. My father finally noticed that I wasn't following in my mother's footsteps, and he banned me from the shop. The money he'd once spent on medicines for my mother, he started spending on tutors who promised they could make me more lady-like. They showed me how to weave and how to dress and how to run a household. I wasn't allowed to do anything else, and I hated every minute of it. And that's when I started sneaking out."

"To the races?" Ja-Kal guessed.

Nefer-Tina nodded. "At first, I only planned to watch them, but…the longer I watched, the more I wanted to be out there myself." She stood up abruptly, pacing a few steps back and forth. "I _knew_ that if I could just get my hands on some reins, I could beat everybody. But, I also knew that nobody would ever hire a girl as their driver. So, I disguised myself as a boy and found a job watering the horses at the track. I saved every single coin I got until I could afford to rent a chariot of my own. I won the first race I entered, and a nobleman came forward to sponsor me. I won the next race too, and the next, and pretty soon, sponsors were easy to come by. After a season or two, I had enough money to leave my father's house. So…I did."

Nefer-Tina stopped pacing and swallowed hard.

She waited for the questions to come - waited for the others to ask if she had ever reconciled with her father. She hadn't. She had tried before she left - she had tried to explain why she couldn't be the person he wanted her to be, but he hadn't listened, and she knew he never would. Once her father made up his mind about something, his resolve was as unshakable as the pyramids themselves.

The questions she feared from the others didn't come, though - they simply waited for her to speak, and for that, she was grateful.

She didn't want to talk about her father now…didn't want to imagine what had happened when Amenhotep kept the promise he'd made to her on her deathbed.

Had her father been ashamed when the Pharaoh told him what had become of his daughter? Or had he been proud at last?

Nefer-Tina wasn't sure which possibility hurt more.

She cleared her throat, pushing those thoughts aside.

"After I left," she continued, "I didn't have to sneak out anymore, and eventually, I guess I could have retired from the track, but…but I didn't want to. I kept racing. But I didn't plan for it to go any farther than that, really I didn't. And it wouldn't have, except…except that the Pharaoh came to view the races himself."

She remembered that day so clearly…the knowledge that her Pharaoh was watching her from among the crowd, the wind in her face, the pounding of the horses' hooves, and the overwhelming pride she'd felt when she'd overtaken every other chariot on the track.

"I won that day too, and the Pharaoh summoned me after the race. He asked me to serve him. Me. A Royal Charioteer!" Even the memory of that moment was enough to make her heart pound. A Pharaoh could have only the best, and he wanted _her_. She'd been absolutely determined to prove herself worthy of the honor. "I couldn't refuse him…and not just because he was the Pharaoh. I wanted to do it. I wanted to prove that I could…if just to myself."

Nefer-Tina stopped when she heard her own words echoing back at her, and she looked up to realize that at some point while she talked, she had started moving again, her feet carrying her around the room. She had ended up next to Ja-Kal, and the leader of the Guardians smiled, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder.

"For what it's worth, Nefer-Tina, you have proven yourself to us many times, and I am honored to fight by your side."

Rath inclined his head. "I feel the same."

Armon nodded. "What he said."

A lump formed in Nefer-Tina's throat, and she was embarrassed to find tears springing to her eyes. She blinked them back stubbornly - she'd always hated to cry. Besides, Nefer wouldn't have cried at all. But, then again, she wasn't Nefer, not really. Not completely. And maybe…maybe, that was alright.

There was a moment of awkward silence as the others realized just how their words had affected her, and then, suddenly, Armon grinned.

"So," he asked, "an only child, huh? You don't really have a sister?"

The question was so unexpected that it took her a few seconds to figure out what he what he was talking about.

Long ago, when the Guardians had first been assigned to the Prince and they had still been getting to know one another, Ja-Kal had suggested they share a meal at his home. They'd talked about many things that night, but the conversation had eventually turned to their families, and Nefer-Tina had told them all that she lived with her sister. It was a dangerous claim to make, but she'd thought it would offer a believable explanation if any of them ever came to Nefer's home and saw Nefer-Tina instead. She'd just prayed that no one ever asked to see them in the same room.

" _Are you and your sister close, Nefer?" Tia, Ja-Kal's wife, had asked._

" _When we were growing up, we were inseparable," she'd answered honestly._

Nefer-Tina smiled, shaking her head. "No, no sister. Just me."

"And, if you could have, would you have gone swimming with us in the Nile?"

Nefer-Tina's smile grew. "Yes. I like to swim."

Armon nodded, apparently satisfied, then he pushed himself up from the bench where he sat and walked over to her, giving her a friendly slap on the back. He didn't use the full force of his strength, and for a moment, she was irritated, wondering if he might be holding back simply because he didn't think that a _woman_ could handle it. But, then she remembered that Armon had patted Rath on the back that way once and sent the scribe sprawling face-first into the sand.

That memory was enough to make her smile return. She glanced over at Rath and snickered, a laugh that wound up sounding almost like a giggle. It was the kind of sound she never would have let escape if she had been _Nefer_ , because men like Nefer didn't _giggle_.

But now, it didn't matter, did it?

Maybe Ja-Kal had been right earlier when he'd said that it would take some time for them to adjust. Maybe _she_ needed some time to adjust. After all, even if she was the same person she had always been, there were still parts of herself that she'd needed to keep hidden away, and she didn't have to do that now. She didn't have to wear that mask anymore.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't realize she was still grinning at Rath.

The Snake-Guardian's eyes narrowed, one eyebrow raising imperiously. "Something funny, Nefer-Tina?" he asked.

"What? Oh, no. No, of course not," she assured, though she couldn't quite banish the smirk from her face.

Rath sniffed disdainfully. "Well, I should hope not. I'm as glad as anyone to have you with us, but your deception is quite a serious matter! I trust you know how fortunate it was that you were able to speak to the Pharaoh before you died. Imagine what might have happened if you'd been discovered by the embalmers. They would surely have noticed that you…that you…"

Rath's words faltered as Nefer-Tina rested one hand on her hip and arched an eyebrow at him in return.

"That I what, Rath?" she asked, daring him to actually say it.

The scribe finally seemed to realize that he'd been about to put his foot in his mouth, and his expression grew increasingly desperate as he tried to find a different way to phrase his point.

"Um, that is to say," he amended haltingly, "that you are…uh, I mean…obviously, you have…eh-hem, certain attributes…"

It wasn't often that they got to see the supremely confident man so flustered, and Ja-Kal and Armon seemed just as eager as she was to watch him dig the hole a little deeper.

"Why, Rath," Ja-Kal said, a rare, mischievous twinkle in his eyes, "whatever do you mean?"

"Yeah, Rath," Armon prodded with relish. "Tell us more about these _attributes_."

Rath sputtered, his mouth opening and closing a few times in a near-perfect imitation of a Nile catfish, and there was absolutely no doubt that if blood still ran in his veins, he would have been blushing furiously.

Ja-Kal and Armon both burst out laughing, and after a moment, even Rath had to laugh at his own expense.

Nefer-Tina grinned again, laughter bubbling up in her own throat until she doubled over with it, amusement mixing with a deeper joy she didn't have a name for.

She could be herself now.

No one would stop her. No one would mind.

And for the first time in a long time, she felt free.

 **Fin**

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A/N: Thank you so much for reading, and please let me know what you think!

Take care and God bless!

Ani-maniac494 :)


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